Video: Creating text

Creating text in 3ds Max is quite simple. All I need to do is go to the Create panel and go to the Shapes panel, and in the Splines category you'll see text, and I'll click on that and just click in the front viewport to create the text with default parameters. When I've created it, I'll right-click to exit the Text tool. Now I'll go directly to the Modify panel and change up those parameters. First of all, I've got the font, which is Arial by default.

The course covers Autodesk 3DS Max from the ground up, providing a thorough overview of this advanced 3D graphics and modeling package. Author Aaron F. Ross covers the 3ds Max interface and walks through common tasks such as modeling, texturing, lighting, animating, and rendering. The course is centered around real-world projects that provide designers practical examples to use with the lessons.

Creating text

Creating text in 3ds Max is quite simple.All I need to do is go to the Create panel and go to the Shapes panel, and in theSplines category you'll see text, and I'll click on that and just click in thefront viewport to create the text with default parameters.When I've created it, I'll right-click to exit the Text tool.Now I'll go directly to the Modify panel and change up those parameters.First of all, I've got the font, which is Arial by default.

I click on that, and I just want to scroll down. I'm looking for Timepiece. There it is.The Size, I'll set to about 5 feet, press Enter, then I'll type in the text.I'll hit Enter to start a new line.I'll center the text.I'll also play around with the Kerning and Leading.Kerning is the space between letters.The Leading is a space between lines;if I give it a negative leading, I can move those closer together.

Notice, by the way, this is a cool feature of 3ds Max, that when I click and dragon those spinners, they're infinite.You'll notice that my cursor is wrapping around from the bottom to the top of the screen.That's very useful.Okay, so I've got some text now.If I want to edit these individual letters, I don't have that ability here.I'll need to convert to Editable Spline in order to do that, and just right-clickanywhere in the viewport and choose Convert To > Convert to Editable Spline.

Once I've done that then I can select individual letters.I'll maximize that front view with Alt+W, and you'll see I've got Splinesub-object mode, and then I can click on one of these and move it around to customize.Some letters, of course, are built out of more than one spline.If I needed to move this P, for example, I need to select both of those splinesand move them together.That's text creation in 3ds Max and as you see, it's quite simple.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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